'Human intelligence remains essential' - Philippe Krakowsky

With the 'Big Six' agency networks set to become 'Big Five' later this year when Interpublic Group merges with Omnicom, IPG's CEO Philippe Krakowsky talks us through one of the main forces that is helping drive such industry-wide change - the growing need and demand for AI solutions.

How has AI already accelerated impact in your business? Any standout examples?

We’ve been incorporating AI into our operations for some time, initially in our media and precision disciplines, where data-driven decisioning has become core to how we work. We then moved onto using AI to automate repetitive workflows and enable rapid content development and now, with generative and agentic AI, we are finding ways to enhance a range of creative processes.

More specifically, in the media business our AI models and algorithms are parsing vast datasets to identify and match the best-performing audiences and media placements, as well as optimize plans in real time. All of which delivers improved client outcomes and drives not only greater but smarter efficiency for every dollar invested.

In areas like production, we use the technology to scale omnichannel programs, across retail, social and messaging platforms. This means generating tens of thousands of assets, informed by the intelligence in our data layer, to ensure not only speed, but also relevance and fidelity to the underlying brand and performance goals of every campaign.

When it comes to creative ideation, generative AI tools are helping our teams explore new concepts and prototype ideas faster. This allows them to focus their craft and get more from their unique expertise as storytellers and interpreters of human truths. They can also do more than just personalise assets at scale, since we are also learning from performance, which allows us to refine what’s delivered in real time or combine AI with our exceptional data assets to pre-test a range of creative ideas with synthetic audiences.

All of this represents a living, evolving ecosystem. And none of this replaces great talent, or the capacity for insight and creativity. That’s because we have integrated AI into the organisation, which means the technology accelerates and scales our expertise.

Where are you seeing the biggest gains — speed, scale, quality?

All three.

For example, in production AI accelerates timelines, expands capacity, and—critically—sharpens the quality of output through insight-led decision-making. The biggest win is actually in the compounding effect: faster execution enables quicker learning. AI allows us to create plans and develop assets with speed and scale. That enables faster and broader deployment, and access to results that in turn feed smarter strategy and improved performance.

The gains are compounding, too, thanks to learning systems we’re building as part of our Interact platform—creative ecosystems that evolve over time by responding to audience behavior, performance signals, and media inputs. We’re starting to see models where the assets don’t just go live at a moment in time, they’re constantly evolving.

As AI takes on more of the heavy lifting, where do you see it starting to lead — beyond just support?

AI is beginning to lead—not just assist—in areas like analysis and performance. It analyzes data like platform usage and makes recommendations on how to improve our own models and algorithms.

In media, we now have tools that allow us to orchestrate dynamic, multichannel campaigns that adapt in real time to audience signals. In strategy, AI is scanning market movements, behavior shifts, and competitive activity to inform decisions at a pace we could not otherwise match. In creative, we’re seeing early but meaningful breakthroughs—AI generating original concepts for our teams to curate, or tailoring narratives to improve consumer engagement and performance for existing campaigns.

Still, human intelligence remains essential. The best outcomes come from fusing machine insight with human judgment, taste, and intuition.

In an AI-driven landscape, where core capabilities are increasingly commoditised, what will truly differentiate one agency from another?

The future will reward those who can create and connect end-to-end systems that learn—where data doesn’t just inform planning but actively shapes adaptive storytelling.

Insight generation and opportunity identification is the first step on that journey, followed by the design and optimisation of the communications architecture required to maximize outcomes. Creating platform ideas that can both build long-term brand equity and drive immediate sales results is the third leg of the stool. All of it connected to technology that delivers at speed and at scale. AI is increasingly core to every part of that ecosystem of activities.

The true differentiators will therefore be talent and data. Because it’s the quality of the data that we use to train our models and the caliber of our people that will differentiate companies as many AI tools and use cases become more broadly available. Without talent and data to interpret signals, triage insights, and build trust, many companies will be unable to avoid an AI-driven reversion to the mean.

What new roles or functions has AI prompted in your organisation? What future roles do you anticipate emerging?

We have AI engineers and prompt designers within a number of our businesses, but we are also seeing a growing need for a category of experts who we refer to as agentic leads. Among these are agent curators who feed AI the right data – think briefs, assets and audiences – to create agents that are maximally beneficial to a client’s business. We also have agent coordinators to ensure the right interactivity between client-specific agents, vertical-specific agents and our own proprietary agents to create balance between scale and customisation.

The next wave will be more interdisciplinary—AI ethicists, experience choreographers, and specialists who interrogate our models to ensure that preconceived notions and inaccuracies based on external learning date are not being baked into our tools—roles that ensure not just performance, but responsibility and resonance.

We’re preparing for that shift. That means placing a real emphasis on governance, creating hybrid roles that combine technical fluency with craft expertise, and continuing to upskill the breadth of our workforce. Because as AI reshapes the terrain, talented people will also play an important role in charting the course.

Heading into the summer frenzy that is the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity, the leaders of the world's largest advertising agency networks take on Creative Salon's questions around the biggest industry trend of the moment, the impact of AI. Stay up to date with Cannes Lions via the dedicated online section.